Women Who Run
by OnWordsAlone
Summary: When she wished the lost goblin away to his own home, she never thought she'd be forced to run the Labyrinth, or that the King would break so many rules. It hardly seemed a fair game, though she had no choice but to play. But some battles cannot be fought alone, and in the Underground, nothing comes without a price. OC. Not a Romance. Sarah plays a role. (Inside for full summary.)
1. Chapter One: Book One

**See author's note at end for more details.**

Summary:

Sarah's journey was one chapter in a centuries old tale. It's now a new generation's last chance to break a curse that threatens the fate of a dying realm. As a young girl is unwittingly forced into something bigger than herself, she will uncover an ancient secret that holds the key to saving a Kingdom's future. But some battles cannot be fought alone, and in the Underground, nothing comes without a price.

Sarah named her daughter after the stars, but never told her that she had danced among them once. Be it protectiveness or simple fear, The Girl Who Ate The Peach sent her children out into a world they could hardly comprehend, and Goblin Kings love teaching simple girls lessons. But Celeste has her mother's blood running through her veins, and a girl whose blood has run the Labyrinth once is sure to win... right?

* * *

The fair folk dance, the fair folk sing  
Dare not step in the magic ring  
Tread not here til the light of day lest  
The fair folk steal your soul away!

- The Fair Folk by Heather Dale

* * *

**Chapter 1: A Conversation With an Old Friend**

* * *

"I don't know, Hoggle," Sarah said. "I haven't crossed over to your side in five years. It's too dangerous. We almost got caught last time!"

Sarah Williams-Ryan was sitting at the vanity in her bedroom and looking through her mirror.

Her other friends were busy with the day's work and had said they would visit later. She barely talked to her friends on the Other Side anymore. Over the years, she had not needed them as much as she had when she was younger. Now that she was busy with her career and children, she only contacted them on the anniversary of her visit to their world. She used to contact them a lot and sometimes she would even cross over for a cup of tea, some cake, and a nice story from Sir Dydimus.

"Yeah. You're prob'ly right." the dwarf said in his gruff manner. "I just wanted to do something fer' ya. We thought it might be nice t' throw ya a big party. Ya know, like the first time. If ya could just stop by, see all of us."

"I understand that, but why now, Hoggle? Why, after all these years?" Sarah said, confused. "Why are you so desperate this year? This is the third time you've asked me. I mean, it's not even an important anniversary! Twenty-two isn't a particularly special number here Aboveground. Is it special down there, or am I right in my assumption that you are hiding something from me?"

Hoggle had been acting strange throughout their entire conversation. This upset Sarah: never since her first time in the Underground had there been a secret between them.

Hoggle looked down at his little grubby shoes, guilt written all over his face. He really did need to wash them. His shoes, that is. Sir Didymus said that he needed to take care of himself. "If one treats oneself with humility and respect," Didymus said, "their peers will respect them and they will be made all the more humble." Hoggle had tried to understand him, but he had never had much respect for himself. Not many people respected Hoggle. Sarah did.

Sarah was special.

The image in the mirror started to flicker and fade. "Earth to Hoggle! Come in Hoggle!" Sarah snapped. She didn't want to be angry at her friend, but she knew she was being left out of something big. "If that blond peacock is doing anything to you, I will personally pull all the hair out of that egotistical head of his! Don't think I won't!"

Hoggle snapped out out of his train of thought. "Sarah, Th' Rat hasn't done anythin' to us."

Sarah looked relieved.

"But this does involve 'im."

Sarah drew herself up, the familiar defiant gleam still lived in her eyes. "What about him?"

"He's... changin'. He's growin' desperate. Don't ask me, I don't know why. All I know is that he's not 'imself and th-"

"Under normal circumstances, I would think that a good thing. But not now... You sound worried, and with all the-" She cut herself off almost as abruptly as she had interrupted him. Her head drooped, her bottom lip trembled, and her emerald eyes began to sting. Sarah closed her eyes, telling herself she would not cry in front of Hoggle. She felt a small, old, weathered hand clasp hers. She looked up in surprise. Hoggle was sitting on her vanity now, clutching her hand and looking at her, his face serious.

"What's happenin', Sarah? What's got ya scared?"

"Robert-" She took a deep breath, "Robert has The Sight."

"That... don't sound so bad."

"But it is. He's not afraid, not nervous at all. Celeste was never afraid either, but at least she was wary. She never approached them or played with them. She was young, but I was able to teach her to pretend they weren't there. She never _played_ with them. Robert is. Dancing and singing with them as if they were his friends."

She said the last few words with anger and a hint of regret. Hoggle was hurt by her tone of voice.

"Not all of us are bad, remember that. No one in Th' Rat's kingdom wishes ya' harm. I'm sure that th' pixies mean no danger."

"Hoggle, he was talking with a dryad. A dryad that approached him, not the other way around."

"Did ya see the dryad?"

"No, not really." She shifted, uncomfortable. "But he was talking to a tree. My Sight's not as strong as theirs."

"What was 'e talkin' about?"

"It wasn't anything important. He was talking about a toy car he wants. Fire truck, I think. He's been telling everyone that. I'm scared though. With Toby, it was a few goblins under the bed when he was five. With Celeste, there were goblins that pulled her hair at night and pixies that wanted to teach her to dance. Now there are pixies, dryads, and all sorts talking with Robert. It worries me."

She let that sink in. It did not, however have the desired effect. She wanted him to understand, and he did. He just didn't agree with her completely.

"Th' little fella has always been bold. They prob'ly like th' little spitfire, thats all."

Sarah couldn't help agreeing with that. Her little four year old had more mouth than a Hollywood diva. There was something bothering her.

"Hoggle, I've never told you this, but I think it's time. I never thought it was important enough to tell, since it's something no one can help, but-" Sarah took a breath and recited the memory she had relived hundreds of times until she knew it wouldn't be difficult to say outloud.

"When Celeste was little we went downtown to the park for a picnic. I had been reading to her under the old oak tree near the little bridge. For some reason, I fell asleep. It was as if I were being forced to feel tired. Lance was sitting on a bench downstream writing, so I wasn't worried about Celeste that much. It was a safe neighborhood and her father could keep an eye on her."

She smiled as she remembered what a daddy's girl her daughter had been.

"Anyway, I fell asleep just as the wind started to pick up. The last thing I remember before falling asleep is the sight of a bright green... something out of the corner of my eye. I woke up to Lance leaning over me telling me he was finished for the day. Celeste was standing by the obelisk staring at the sky. Lance went to put the picnic things in the car and I went after her. It wasn't until I got near that I realized what she was doing. She was singing that damn song."

Sarah was crying now. She was scared and angry at herself for endangering her children. As a mother, she felt like a failure, exposing them to dangers that should remain untold.

"She told us later that a Faerie lady taught her the song. That was not like her at all. She is a brave girl, but she never talked to strangers or let them approach her, _especially_ Faeries!

"This is all my fault Hoggle! I'm scared that something will happen to them and I won't be there with them. I thought this was over. I won! I don't need this!"

Hoggle had been growing increasingly upset throughout Sarah's story. She was wrong. This was his fault. The peach had given her The Sight, which she passed on to her children.

The peach _he_ had given her. This was his fault. He had lived with that guilt ever since the moment her pale hands had grasped the seductive, fleshy fruit. He had heard the terrible sound of her teeth tearing the sensuous skin. He didn't know what had happened in that dream of hers, but he imagined it was the stuff of nightmares. Her forgiveness did nothing for his guilt.

"Sarah, don't blame yourself. Celeste can't See anymore. Th' same will happen with Robert. You'll see. After he grows up a little, he won't See us. I promise."

She sniffled. "Thanks Hoggle. I know you're always here for m-"

**CRASH!**

A loud noise came from downstairs, followed by a boy's voice calling out, "CELESTE DID IT!"

This was then followed by a young woman's voice coming from upstairs, "I DID NOT!"

"IT WAS YOUR BOX THAT MADE ME FALL!"

"MAYBE YOU SHOULD HAVE BEEN PAYING ATTENTION!"

By this time, Sarah's expression had changed from that of maternal guilt to a look of mother jaded and exhausted after a good day's work. It was interesting how much she looked like Karen in that moment. After a split second of observing the phenomenon of Nature vs. Nurture present in her expression in the mirror, she did what any mom in her situation would do: she yelled back. "QUIEEEEEET!"

Hoggle had only a moment's warning before he ducked down and covered his ears. When he got back up the house was completely still.

The stillness was broken by the sound of two sheepish inside voices. "Yes ma'am."

Sarah heard a door upstairs slam followed by the the annoying loud thumps of electronic music. She sighed and rolled her eyes. Some battles weren't worth fighting. Celeste would have to learn eventually, and it was better for her to learn the lessons she needed herself, not in another speech from her mother. _As if that ever did any good_, she thought.

A sigh escaped her. It was so hard sometimes, walking the line between encouraging her daughter's imagination and wily spirit without letting her know that the Fae were real or risking her daughter needing the same lessons she had.

"Hoggle, you need to go. Crossing over was a risk, you can't try again."

The moment was over. Hoggle turned to go back through the mirror, only to find it black and warped. He blinked in surprise and the mirror cleared as if it had never been in any other state. Shrugging it off as age catching up to him, he climbed through into his little house. He turned to get one last look at the woman who held his heart, but she was already gone.

Sarah left the room with a thousand thoughts and feelings running through her head. Sure, her half-human, half-demon son just broke something, and knowing him it was something expensive. Her daughter seemed to be having a bad day; if the yelling and door slamming was any evidence, and her husband and his band were considering a new label that wanted them to tour.

Despite all of this she felt relatively safe. The pixies and dryads were a problem, but they were so far a small one. They had never hurt Celeste, and she had no reason to believe they would hurt Robert. It was only the thought of what they might do that frightened her.

But she had friends, a fantastic job, and a family that was still a family. None of the bad things were the reasons for her worry nor were the good things lifting her spirits.

She felt like something was going to happen, something she couldn't control. And Sarah had never liked that feeling one bit.

She had first started showing her need for control at the age of ten, when her mother left. She had started to keep her bedroom immaculate. Her toys and books had an order, everything had a place, a purpose, a home. As the world lost control and fell around her, the idea of books and stuffed toys staying the same through time was her greatest comfort. When her father came home with her stepmother, Karen, she was twelve. She learned that she hated control that wasn't her own. It was her world! What right did that woman with have to boss her around?

It had taken years to call her _mom_.

When she was thirteen, her mother sent her a book, The Labyrinth. Looking back, she probably should have burned that book, for all the trouble it caused her. In a way, she had disliked that place; it had no order, no logic or reason. It was nothing like the sparkling fairytale world she had wished for. Even the castle had been crumbling and empty, not that she had much time to notice it.

No, Toby had been her priority. And the glee the goblins had taken in slowing her down and confusing her caused a small amount of frustration.

Ithad been her own words that created the mess, she had no cause to hate the Realm.

She truly loved the friends she had made there, but she never wished to return past her companions' homes. It was a crumbling mass of rock, nothing more. It hadn't seemed that way on the page. The book had been a fairytale, a place to escape to where she was a princess. She had felt as if she had her own world.

She had been forced to let go of her dreams of a kingdom being handed to her. Sarah wanted her own kingdom as great . . .

As great as what?

_As great as all the stars in the sky? No, I never wanted the stars. Just my own kingdom I could build for myself, and I did just that._

She smiled at that thought. Why was she so worried? She had quite a few reasons to smile. Her smile broke into a grin as she thought of something Linda used to say.

"The good is always underneath the bad. You may have to dig a little and dirty your nails, but you'll find the thing you were looking for."

Of course Linda had said that right before she left for the final time. Linda had found what made her happy, but left Sarah and her father behind in the process.

Snapping out of her thoughts, Sarah put on her Mom Face to lecture her son on breaking something. As she stepped into the living room, she looked over at Robert who was still staring at whatever he had broken...

And almost danced for joy. He had broken the one thing in the house that she absolutely loathed. The big, ugly vase that Karen had given her was now in a million pieces all over - was she seeing what she thought she saw? Yes, she was! The table runner Lance's mom had given them was covered in all the little sharp bits and jagged pieces.

She had never tried to throw those things away because Karen and her mother in-law, Gwen, stopped by often, and always wanted to see their donated decorations. Sometimes Sarah thought those two women had it out for her.

Now she finally had an excuse to throw them out. It was times like these she was grateful for the fact that her four year old was a tiny terror.

_Well, not really,_ she corrected herself once she remembered the teacher's note she had read earlier. _He still won't tell me how he got those cats to do that._

"What happened?" Sarah asked, looking expectantly at her son.

"I was just being a bird when my wing **accidentally** bumped the thing!" he answered.

"And where is your wing?" Sarah asked, fearing the worst.

Robert took a glance at the vase pieces scattered across the end table and floor before leaving for the kitchen. He came back with his "wing." It was, in reality, the kitchen broom with sand colored owl feathers taped to it.

Once the pieces had been picked up and thrown away - and her son had a talking to about rowdy behavior in the house, - Sarah went into the kitchen to start working on supper.

As she went about preparing the ingredients, she looked back on her conversation with Hoggle. It had not gone as she had hoped. Their annual conversations were the only connections to her childhood she had left. It was not ideal, but it was necessary.

The Goblin King could vaguely sense portals being opened. If he found them out, Hoggle would get in trouble. The only time they made an exception to their No Physical Contact rule before that very day was on the sixteenth of June, the anniversary of the day she had run the Labyrinth. Hoggle had put himself in danger by climbing through just to comfort a mother's shaken nerves.

Only months before she had given birth to Robert, Hoggle had invited her through for some tea. Lance had been asleep on the couch after a long night of holding Sarah's hair out of her face as she went through morning sickness. Almost as soon as she had crossed over, the Goblin Corps converged on his little home.

She remembered how she had to make a very quick exit without being caught. It hadn't always been like that. For the first few years after her little trip into The Underground, she had visited a lot, and her friends had visited her. Lately, her friends seemed to have more respect for The Goblin King's rules. It was almost as if they felt guilty and were trying to make up for all the times they had disobeyed. They never liked to answer her when she asked why their attitudes had changed. She sensed their respect, as if they were grateful for something.

This train of thought led to other trains of thought, which led to her thinking about the Goblin King himself. Hoggle had tried to tell her something about him earlier. She wished she hadn't interrupted him.

_You still take too many things for granted. Even your friends_, a voice whispered in her mind. She closed her eyes and stood there in her kitchen, up to her elbows in dishwater, thinking.

_What is going on with Jareth?_

* * *

**Author's note:**

_The Women Who Run: Book One _is currently finished and in its last editing phase. (Book One being 14 chapters long and having a cohesive plot that resolves at the end.) I'll try to upload every three weeks or so.

This was my first NaNoWriMo story, so it's a few years old, and was an exercise in plotting and keeping characters (both OC and not) in character. I worked on building a new backstory and environment from already-there material. I'll try to talk a little bit about behind the scenes thought processes at the end of each chapter. I am not saying this will be a work of art or a perfect fic, but I really enjoyed drawing from mythology and folklore to create what happens later, and wish to share that with you all.

Enjoy! And please, tell me what you think!

-"The Fair Folk" is a fun, dark song by Heather Dale about dancing with the Fae for a little too long. Appropriate for Sarah's fear of her children being too close to creatures she knows whisk children away, even while still being the sort of person who might get whisked away herself. Check it out and support her if you like it!

- Some people believe that the imaginary friends most children have might actually be the Fair Ones, inevitably forgotten and Unseen once the child grows up. Others say that to have the Sight puts even a child in danger, as the Fair Ones are drawn to those they know can See them.

- On Celeste's name: I know it's a little flowery, but Sarah strikes me as the sort who - even in adulthood - would want to name her daughter after the heavens. And for her son? A classic, princely name taken from her beloved father.


	2. Chapter Two

Dear, you should not stay so late,  
Twilight is not good for maidens;  
Should not loiter in the glen  
In the haunts of goblin men.

- Goblin Market by Christina Rossetti

* * *

**Chapter 2: Out of the Closet**

* * *

Celeste watched the last bit of sun disappear behind the small forest at the rear of their house. The leaves of her favorite branch - a steady oak arm reaching in from the yard and almost meeting her window - rustled in the warm summer breeze. With a reluctant sigh, she pulled herself away from the window seat. _Mom would probably like help with supper._

"When I was

A you-"

Once her speakers were turned down and she was ready to leave her bedroom, she heard it - a muffled thump from her closet. Startled, she turned to face the closed wooden doors. She heard another thump and what sounded like a frustrated squeak.

Celeste slowly approached the closed door, preparing to surprise whoever was in there. _It's not Robert, he couldn't have come up the stairs that fast._

Casting her eye about the room, she leaned over to grab hold of the broom she had left behind her door earlier that day while cleaning.

The metal of the closet door knob was cold, something she would remember later, no matter how useless the detail was. With a breath and a prayer, she turned the knob as quick as she could so she could let go of the door to hold the broom steady in her hands. With an awkward maneuver of her left foot, she pushed the door wide open and stood her ground.

No one was there. The air rushed out of her lungs and she couldn't help but let out a laugh at her own expense.

"I could have sworn-"

"Aagh!" Something small and brown seemed to fly at her head. _A monkey?_ was the only thing her brain provided as she froze in shock.

The broom fell to the floor and she squealed, leaping back in an attempt to get out of reach of the creature. All she managed to notice were ragged clothes and a horrible smell as it landed with its limbs around her waist and scrambled around before swinging its body to her back and gripping her shoulders. Its heaving gasps pushed into her back in a wheezing, erratic pattern. Just as she was deciding what to do, - specifically, how loud she should scream - Whatever-It-Was hopped off her back and scuttled under her bed.

Hoping to get a glimpse of it before it disappeared, she spun around as fast as she could but had no such luck. It was no longer in sight, making strange, guttural noises. She heard what might have been a sniffle, but was too preoccupied with the chorus of _impossible, impossible, impossible_ drumming though her head to the beat of her racing heart to pay the specific noises much mind.

Without a moment to spare, the broom was retrieved and shoved underneath the bed, where it was waved wildly and with little aim in an attempt to-

What exactly was she trying to do? Startle an upset, possibly wild, escaped zoo animal into attacking her? She pulled the broom out at the possibility and began backing away, remembering what a Steve Irwin wannabe had taught her second grade class on a field trip to the local zoo's reptile house. _If you see a dangerous animal in your house, back out of the room slowly and shut it in. Then find an adult._

Apparently, screaming for her mother would always be the next step after getting away from the unknown thing beneath her bed, whether she was five or seventeen. Her bedroom door shook as her back collided with it. She had taken one step too far, so caught up was she in focusing on keeping her eye on the shadows under the bed, as if her glare could keep the creature trapped. She tried to slow her breathing while reaching surreptitiously for the door handle, before a peculiar noise froze her movements.

_Is It..._ Her expression wrinkled in confusion. _Crying? Do monkeys cry? Crap, last week was not the time to pass up watching that nature documentary with Dad._

A single sob rushed out to meet her disbelieving ears . If she hadn't been frozen to the door by her panicky nature and growing confusion, she would have shaken her head at her own folly. She didn't know why she was about to what she felt inclined to do, but she knew she was a now-or-never kind of girl. _Do it or don't, either way, I need to move._

Celeste came to a decision - the decision was not the kind of decision a sane person would make, but it was already made. She approached the bed, not wanting to startle it. With a shaky breath, she lowered herself to her knees, her arms stiff on either side of her. The lavender comforter hanging over the edge of her bed seemed to taunt her by obstructing her view of what could be watching her from underneath it. _Maybe it's a tame-ish monkey, like in those movies._

At least it had not attacked her yet, maybe if she continued to move very slowly, it would calmly accept her presence. One trembling hand was shoved with caution under the bed with a quiet squeak from the girl it belonged to. She bit her lip and waited.

"Go 'way!" A voice croaked.

She screamed.

"OH MY GOD!" In a few short seconds, she had rushed to her feet, overestimated her trajectory, and fallen back to land on the floor. Her elbow took the brunt of the pain of the fall as it landed on the merciless hardwood beneath her. The breath she had been holding - and then some - was knocked out of her. Instinct took over and she scrambled to stand up and jump over the space between her and her bed, landing in an awkward position on the mattress before again rushing to her feet and stopping to catch her breath.

The room was still. No one rushed up the stairs to investigate her screams as she had hoped. She found that she was stuck in her terror again and was having trouble taking in enough air to scream. For a brief moment in time, no sound was heard from underneath her feet, but that peace was short lived as she heard it begin to move again. _Shitshit**shit.**_

Ignoring her pounding heart and sudden conviction that she was well and truly crazy, Celeste forced herself to watch as Whatever-It-Was crawled out into the middle of her floor.

It was not a monkey. Though the English vocabulary coming from its mouth had given that away, she had still been holding on to some fragile hope that it would prove to be a recognizable animal.

The Thing was hardly two feet tall, with a dirty towel tied around its body as clothing, It turned to face her then, enormous green eyes meeting her brown ones. It sniffled and she noticed its eyes were puffy from crying, though she had no idea what things like it were supposed to look like normally. One of its ears stood up like a cat's would, while the other hung limp over its left eye, adding to the downtrodden nature of its appearance.

It looked her up and down many times, appraising her position.

"Girl..." it said in its croaky, cracking voice. "Girl is scared of me!"

To her surprise and much to her horror, it began to stomp its feet and jump into the air like an excited child, celebrating the notion of scaring someone. Luckily for Celeste, his elation made him somewhat less terrifying and she found the courage she needed to speak again.

"No, no," she motioned wildly from her vantage point as the thing barreled into her bookshelf. "Please stop that, you'll break things."

It was too preoccupied with its own joy to notice or care for her distress.

"No, really please." Her voice rose with every word. "Well, maybe I should have hit you with the broom after all!"

The creature stopped at her threat, only to stick its tongue out at her and cross its eyes.

"Broom not worse than Bog. You're not so scary! You're bossy like King, though. But he can be scaaa-ry!"

Alarm bells started to go off in Celeste's head. She recognized those words.

"No," she whispered, astonished. "That is _not_ possible."

The thing looked at her, as if waiting for her to explain her change of mood. Celeste, however, was not paying attention to the creature anymore, but mumbling to herself, barely aware of doing it.

"If I'm really going crazy, someone up there owes me if I'm going to start seeing _goblins_."

"You heard 'bout us? How?" The goblin's eyes widened.

Celeste's gaze flicked between the goblin and the wall behind it, all the while still holding her position on top of her bed.

"It wasn't even that good of a book! I only read it once and that was ages ago..." she trailed off, staring at the goblin who was looking at her as if she were the one out of place. Then it tilted its head in thought. She watched as the goblin's eyes widened.

"Book! You're the girl!"

"No," she corrected the goblin, not even sure of what he was talking about. "I'm not _the_ girl, I'm just a girl. All I did was read a book."

She was not actually allowed to read The Labyrinth. She had been twelve years old when she found it for the first time. She found it behind her mother's old jewelry box in the back of her parents closet, as if it was not supposed to be found or touched, but was too important to be thrown away. Like any good girl, she had brought the book to her mother to ask if it was all right for her to read it.

Her mother had been horrified she had found it and almost snatched it away before telling Celeste never to read anything without Sarah's explicit permission. Celeste hadn't been looking for the book. She was playing dress up with her mother's old stage costumes when a falling dress had given a good view of the corner the box was in. Over the years, the book had shown up in strange places all over the house, only to be constantly taken away by her mother and finally ignored altogether by an obedient yet curious child.

When she was fifteen, she decided that if it turned up again, she was meant to read it. _Destiny does exist. Maybe this is it,_ she had thought. It had been a dramatic conclusion made by a daydreamer. The next night, she had found The Book under her pillow, right before she went to sleep. She had turned to the first page, squinting through her eyelids just in case she saw she oughtn't. She really had no idea what was in the book, it could have been a diary from her mother's youth.

To her surprise, it had been a fairytale about a princess with a brother she did not want, soon to be followed by a suitor she did not want, and a King at that. It had been a good read, and while some parts had seemed silly, the story had stuck with her.

While it had been an enjoyable distraction for a couple of hours, it wasn't remarkable enough to be sent to her as if by magic. In the weeks that followed her reading of the book she had decided it was not part of her destiny to read a children's story, but a coincidence. A strange coincidence, but a happy one.

Her mother had been so adamant about Celeste not being allowed to read the book and Celeste had worried she might never see it again if she ever brought it up, so she hid it behind a panel in her closet wall to wait until she moved out. Then it would be packed in a box and she would take it with her. Was she stealing if her mother had not noticed it was missing?

But it wasn't as if she loved it enough to want to start seeing the characters in it. She had read something and liked it enough to want to keep it, as one wants to keep a scrap book of their summer vacations or a collection of riddles from their childhood. It was really the hope she had attached to it before reading it for the first time that had made it so special to her.

The goblin frowned and spoke up again, shaking Celeste out of her thoughts. "What's your name, girl-who-is-not-_the_-girl?"

"My name is Celeste,"

He - and she had decided to call it a he - blinked, as though realizing something. "You're not screaming," he said, surprised. "You're not scared!" His bottom lip began to tremble. He scrambled under the bed and began to cry again, this time louder than before.

Celeste was shocked at his sudden change in attitude. And h_e had just started to calm down too._ Getting down on her knees, she began to shush him. "I didn't mean to upset you! Shh. You need to be quiet. My family will hear you!"

He didn't stop moaning and crying. She needed to distract him. "What's your name? I told you mine."

"Skuttel," he mumbled between wails.

"That's a good goblin name," Celeste tried to make him feel better. "How did you come to be in my closet, Skuttel?"

"We were tapposed ta, uh, scare boy last night. But I got lost and hid. Then I heard a funny noise from the little room over there, and got scared and thought something was comin' for me, so I got up and attacked and it was you and then I ran under your bed and then you started talking and you got bossy and I said-"

"Okay! You can stop now! What do you mean, 'funny noise?'"

"Terrible sounds! Waterfalls and sirens with head colds singing!"

"That . . . was me in the shower."

Skuttel gave her a blank look. "Shower? Rain? Indoors? Why?"

"You mean you've never seen an indoor shower?" Celeste wasn't very surprised. _That explains a lot._

"Never." the scrawny goblin shook his head, obviously confused at the human's strange habits.

"Well Skuttel, when people get dirty they clean themselves by taking baths or showers. Baths are big tubs of clean water and showers are like clean rain someone stands under."

"Oh. We just swim around in the lake."

Celeste nodded, trying to keep Skuttel calm while thinking about how best to handle the situation. "Skuttel, we need to get you home. Are there any other goblins that can take you home?"

"No. Other goblins already left. We were gonna scare little boy named Robert, but I'm never scary so other goblins left me up here."

"Are the other goblins mean to you?"

"Yes. Sometimes they say mean things 'cause I'm little and a bad goblin. I'm a failure!" He finished in a dramatic wail.

"No Skuttel, You're not a failure, don't think that." Celeste was on her knees looking at him at face level. He was wearing a pair of baggy pants and a grubby shirt that looked liked it might as well have been made from patches. "You're different, not a failure. I'll tell you what: If the other goblins give you a hard time, I'll talk to them about it, but you need to go home. You can't stay here. My mother doesn't know you're here and you'd be safer if she never knew."

"Why is she scary? Is she bad? I know a bad-scary-lady. Medusa." He mumbled on, "Bad ladies are named Medusa."

"You sure have a lot of questions. My mother's not scary or bad. I get the feeling she doesn't like you little guys too much. And her name is Sarah."

Skuttel's eyes widened as his head shot up. "Sar-"

"Celeste! Could you come down here, please? I need some help!"

Celeste turned to the sound of her mother's voice coming up the stairs. "Coming!" She turned to Skuttel. His mouth was still hanging open in shock. "You stay in this room until I get back. Don't make a mess."

Skuttel nodded, still speechless.

She turned and hurried downstairs.

_Mom must have known they were real, that's why she hid the book. But all my life she's encouraged my belief in things I could not prove existed and now I find she knows they're real. Why would she hide them from me?_

Celeste winced in pain as images flashed through her mind.

_Dancing... laughing... joy, **joy**._

The sensation was gone faster than it had come and she shook her head to clear it. There was no room in her mind for silly fantasies when she had such strange, real problems to take of.

* * *

Sarah was waiting for her at the stove, stirring two different things. "Pick up that pot in the sink - it's clean - now bring it over here and start the peas. After that, could you-"

**Click!**

Sarah stopped talking and turned her head towards the back door. Her husband, Lance Ryan, was finally home. He entered the house, fiddle case in hand. His wide, lopsided grin and tousled brown hair indicating he had a busy, happy day. "Hey!"

"Daddy." Robert trudged up to his father and rested his forehead on Lance's thigh. "I broke something today."

Lance looked up at his wife. "What broke?"

"Karen's vase was shattered all over the floor and table."

"Oh really? Robert, were you running in the house again?"

"No," the little boy said before running off to the living room to find and hide his feather covered broom.

"Well, other than that, what else happened today?" Lance walked over to stand next to Sarah at the stove.

Sarah and Celeste both smiled, one happy to see her husband after a long day, one trying to hide her feelings about what had happened to her just moments before.

"Nothing much!"

* * *

**Author's note:**

- Obligatory Goblin Market quote, check.

- Yes, that was a My Chemical Romance quote. I promise it was a completely self-aware addition. (And they actually do rock.)

- The broom was a reference to a deleted scene from the film. A bit of googling will turn up a rare few publicity stills featuring Sarah preparing to attack something in her parents' bedroom with a broom. Oh, what I wouldn't give for footage of that take to surface...

- I wrote and rewrote and rewrote Skuttel's lines a bunch, and I'm still not happy with them. And I had the hardest time naming him too! I love choosing names for my characters and crafting them to fit their roles, but I had the darndest time with that goblin for some reason.

- If you have read my oneshot To Be Human, you already know who Lance is. It's not necessary to read it to understand anything in this story, but I'm fond of it and to be honest, its tone and style are something I wish I could pull off every time I wrote. If you feel like it, please check it out!


	3. Chapter Three

Wishes come true, not free  
Careful the spell you cast  
Not just on children  
Sometimes a spell may last  
Past what you can see  
And turn against you

- Children Will Listen from Into The Woods

* * *

**Chapter 3: Careful The Wish You Make**

* * *

"Thanks for supper, Mom!" Celeste rushed to put her dishes away correctly. She hadn't heard any noise from upstairs throughout the entire meal and she wasn't sure if that was a good thing or not.

Up the stairs she went, quick as she liked until she slowed down at her door so she would not scare the goblin in her bedroom.

She opened the door just enough to slip inside and shut it behind her. She didn't see Skuttel immediately, the room seemed empty. She felt a hand tug on her pant leg and looked down at the goblin. He looked at her with solemn eyes. In his hands was the book she knew so well.

Anticipation filled her as she took the red bound book from him and moved over to her bed to sit down. "Would you like me to read it?"

He hopped up and down in happy affirmation. Celeste decided his eyes were always wide. _Does he ever blink?_

"Okay." She wet her lips before turning the first fragile page to the only beginning anyone holding the small leather bound book would expect. "'_Once upon a time..._'"

* * *

...In a kingdom far away, there lived a beautiful princess. Life wasn't easy for the young princess, for her stepmother worked her like a slave. The princess was forced always to stay home and watch over her baby brother, so she could never leave the castle.

But what no one knew was that the King of the Goblins had fallen in love with the princess and had given her certain powers.

The princess knew that the King of the Goblins could take away the baby and keep him forever and ever and turn him into a goblin. And so she suffered in silence. Day in and day out, she worked without ever uttering a harsh word or complaint.

Until one day, she too was tired to work any longer. She had not seen the sun for weeks. She longed to smell the flowers in the garden and feel the wind through her hair. She knew the Goblin King could grant her wish. And so she called on him for help.

_Goblin King! wherever you may be, take this child far away from me!_

The King of the Goblins granted her wish, his goblins took the baby and hid him in a magnificent castle at the center of a vast Labyrinth. The King appeared before the girl and offered her dreams in exchange for the child.

But the princess realized what she had done. She still loved her brother. It was not his fault she was forced to work so hard. She thought of how frightened he must have been, snatched away from the sister who cared for him and whom he loved so dearly.

She began to feel sad and refused the Goblin King's offer of her dreams and began to cry. There was no value in dreams she could not work for. She could not accept her dreams if it meant giving up her brother.

The Goblin King could not stand the see the beautiful princess cry, but he could not take back her own wish. He gave her a choice;

_Accept my offer or run my Labyrinth. If you can find your brother in thirteen hours, your brother will be returned to you. If you lose, your baby brother will become one of us. Forever!_

The princess accepted his challenge with solemn resolution.

Through dangers untold and hardships unnumbered, she fought her way through the Labyrinth.

She found her way to the castle beyond the Goblin City to take back the child he had stolen.

The Goblin King offered her heart's every desire if she would just bow to him. But her power was his equal and her kingdom as great.

_You have no power over me!_ she cried.

The Goblin King's power over her was destroyed and she and her brother were returned to their world.

The Goblin King and his selfish love never bothered her again, and she lived happily ever after.

* * *

Celeste closed the book and looked at her watch. It was almost ten o'clock. Skuttel had fallen asleep in her lap when she got to the confrontation between the princess and the Goblin King and had begun to snore like a freight train before she reached the end.

_...granted her wish..._

An idea began to form in her head. Skuttel had told her he could not go back on his own and she had foolishly promised him she would defend him from the other goblins when they bullied him.

_...goblins took the baby..._

"Skuttel! Hey, come on, wake up!" She shook his shoulder as gently as she could. With a snort, he opened his eyes and leaped into an upright position.

"Skuttel, would you go home if I wished you away?"

"Uhh... think so." He nodded.

"Good. Here, I'll hold you so they can't take you right away. I want to talk to them."

Skuttel jumped on her back. He wrapped his legs around her rib cage, and gripped her shoulders.

He seemed to enjoy clinging to her back.

_It's like he's a backpack. A smelly, dirty backpack._

"Ready?" She felt him nod. "Okay. Goblin Kin-!"

"No! Those aren't the words!"

"Really? What are the right words, then?" _So the book was wrong about certain things, interesting._ _Doesn't matter, this will all be over in a few minutes._

Later she would hate the thought. Oh, how wrong she was.

"Say, 'I wish the goblins would come and take you away. Right now.'"

That seemed to be rather simple for something as grave as wishing someone away, but she tried it anyway.

A steadying breath, a widened stance. She inhaled, exhaled, and spoke.

"Skuttel, I wish the goblins would come and take you away, right now!"

The lights flickered and went out as the room filled with shrieks of glee and inhuman giggles. The goblins moved fast over the walls and the bed. Thumps resounded off of her abuse furniture as something shattered behind her. Celeste had to steel herself and put aside her fear of the goblins, even as one ran over her feet.

"All right! Stop it! All of you!"

The goblins went silent as the lights came back on. Celeste was surprised her parents had not rushed through her door when they had been making their exuberant racket. She turned around the room slowly and took stock of the mess they had made.

The first one she noticed was on her bookcase. He looked like a small pig with the ability to stand on two feet. One peaked out from under her pillows, one eye glaring at her, one covered in an eye-patch, the rest of him seemed to be nothing but blue fur; another was hanging from the light fixture by his opposable toes. Five of them in all, and they were all staring at her as if she could breathe fire.

"Line up in the center of the room, please." At the slightest indication that commanding them about would work, Celeste jumped on the opportunity to keep them under control.

There was a scramble as the goblins tried to line up in front of what they perceived was a crazy-girl. Keeping one eye on her bedroom door to watch for the stairway light, she turned her back on her window and glared at the _supposed_ mythical creatures in her bedroom.

Celeste assumed they weren't used to people not being frightened by them, as Skuttel had been surprised by her lack of fear earlier that evening. She would have been scared if she hadn't known how Skuttel had been hurt by the goblins leaving him behind in a place he wasn't familiar with and not caring enough to leave a doorway open. _Do they travel by portals? maybe through spells?_

The goblins were almost successful in their attempt at creating a proper lineup. They elbowed each other and grumbled as they moved into place. One decided to to salute her and another turned to face the wall in the opposite direction.,

"Listen up," she nudged Skuttel and moved him around so she could lower him to the floor and take his hand, as she had seen adults introduce their shy children to others on the playground. "Do you all know him?"

The goblins nodded.

"Were you here with him earlier?"

They all nodded again.

"Did you know you were leaving him behind?"

They did not nod, only looked at the floor in an obvious display of guilt. Celeste got down on her knees to be at eye level with the goblins, her hand still clutching the smaller goblin at her side. The book had said that they were children that had been wished away, but she had not figured they would act just like children. It made it easier to picture them as Robert or another child she could be babysitting.

"That wasn't nice. It was _mean_. You shouldn't have left him here. You should have come back for him." She decided to take the impromptu lesson in kindness further. "I haven't met your king, but do you think he would be happy with you if I told him?"

"Told me what, Celeste?"

The rich voice that flowed into her ear from behind her shoulder shook a soft cry from her mouth and a swift turn from her head. She barely had time to meet a pair of mismatched eyes before she twisted further away from the Faerie that could only have been the King in her storybook.

He was resplendent, every garment designed to highlight his powerful rank. Silk robes of deep purple, including a collarless cloak that flowed down his lanky frame like water in an unearthly way that no mortal made fabric could achieve. But his tawny hair, - barely falling past his ears - was pushed back out of his eyes and created a more modern image than she had imagined he would present.

Celeste had not imagined him as imposing as he really was. He was frightening, proud, and looked directly at her in a way that made her feel as if he knew everything about her.

"Why so surprised? You summoned me."

"Y-yes. Well, um, I was wishing away, uh, Skuttel..."

The Goblin King raised an eyebrow. The quirk of his mouth formed an amused smirk at her dithering. His gaze moved from her nervous expression to the goblin hiding behind her. Skuttel stepped out from behind Celeste and moved before his king, head bowed.

"They, uh, left him behind."

"Oh?" His voice was dangerously low as he glared at the goblins lined up in the center of her bedroom floor. He waved his arm to point out the window.

Celeste could not contain her gasp of shock when instead of the simple view of the tree in the backyard and the forest beyond, she was met with the sight an old oak door.

The Goblin King pushed the door until the opening was wide enough for the smaller creatures and watched each of the goblins walk through one by one before he turned back to Celeste and Skuttel. Celeste could not catch a glimpse of the world beyond the door and strained her ears to hear what might be behind it until she noticed his eyes were back on her.

It was a struggle to force herself to meet his eyes with what she hoped was a more neutral expression than she had held a moment before, but she managed to achieve that small victory.

"Your family never tires of wishing, my dear. There were other ways of summoning me for the sake of a _goblin_."

Celeste heard the condescension in his voice and couldn't help but feel defiance creep into her tone.

"I didn't know that." She had only just found out he even existed, after all. Her focus was drawn away from her meager attempt at defending herself and onto something else he had said. "And what do you mean about my family?"

He held up his hand, dismissing whatever she had to say with a simple turn of his palm in the air.

"No turning the clock back now." To Skuttel he said. "Follow them back home."

Skuttel saluted his King and marched across the floor. He turned back to smile at Celeste before he hopped through the door-window and was out of sight. The sound of the door slamming closed behind him startled Celeste enough to make her jump.

"Celeste," the Goblin King said, "In return for wishing my own subject away to me, I ask you to accept this reward."

Fury filled her at his mocking tone, but she was too frightened to let him see. With a showy twist of his hand, he pulled a crystalline sphere from the air in front of him. "Your dreams, Celeste."

The sphere was compelling. Celeste stepped forward, entranced. She was unable to look away as images began to form within its depths. The sparkling reflections of Celeste's young face shaped themselves into the secrets she had never shared with anyone.

A whispering voice in her head advised caution as she walked nearer to the magical orb. It seemed much larger on the inside, it could have been it's own world. A world just for her.

This was wrong. Did she really want this?

_Think, girl._ The voice advised.

"No!" she whispered, looking away.

He seemed to grimace for a second before forcing his face back into a smug smile.

"Then you must run my Labyrinth. You haven't any other choice."

"I don't need to run your Labyrinth. I don't want to win _your_ goblin back."

The Goblin King looked at her. No, he looked through her. His gaze became so unfocused Celeste grew curious enough to shake herself out of the near frozen state her body had entered.

With a turn of her head in the direction he was staring, Celeste realized he was looking at her dresser, specifically her small iron tree figurine she used to hold her jewelry. The slightest brushing of his gloved fingers over a cross hanging form a branch caused her to tilt her head in confusion.

The air around them suddenly shimmered for the shortest of moments like a mirage in an arid desert before everything abruptly returned to normal; the window was a window again and her room no longer looked to be ransacked by a gang of goblins.

The dark clad King still stood before her, more out of place than before with a strange expression upon his face. He looked... contemplative?

And then he began to grin, his teeth seemed sharp, lethal. The King laughed, a loud booming laugh meant to startle and impress. Before she knew what was happening, he vanished before her eyes as if he too had been nothing more than a mirage.

_Well, that was...interesting_. Warm brown eyes blinked in confusion. She took a steadying breath and looked down at her still shaking hands.

A faint grating sound began to register in her right ear first, then in both ears as the sound grew even louder. The tree, she realized. Something was moving down her favorite branch and towards her open window at an alarming pace.

Celeste had only a moment of warning as her instincts told her to get out of the way. She ducked and squealed at something flew over her head and hit the door behind her. It fell to the floor with a stale **thwack!** and ceased its movement completely.

It was the crystal.

Upon closer inspection, She knew it was not the crystal _he_ had offered her. This one was roughly the same size and shape, but it was cloudy, as if it had smoke or mist trapped inside. Celeste gazed at it, wondering why she had this. Would it hurt her? Was it a sign that she had somehow lost to the Goblin King by rejecting both the options given her? Was she supposed to keep it? _It wouldn't even make a good paperweight, there's no flat side._

Celeste shook her head to clear her wandering thoughts and banish all silly notions from her mind. Surely this thing meant _something_. But what?

It must have sensed her question, for it began to vibrate softly on her hand. She gasped as it lifted itself into the air to float in front of her face and the smoky interior began to clear. The vibrating crescendoed and came to a full stop as the crystal became absolutely pure and clean.

An image formed at the center of the magical sphere. It seemed too far away for her to comprehend, yet she felt a sense of dread and panic begin to bubble inside her chest. Celeste felt as if her mind was being pulled at by an external force as she stared at the image. She felt her vision leaving her body and soaring into the scene, yet she knew her feet were still firmly planted on the floor beneath her.

She gazed in awe as she seemed to fly over a vast Labyrinth, then almost felt disappointed at the sight of the rundown hovels beyond. Above her loomed an imposing castle spiked with towers, crumbling at the windows, and covered in vines. There was little time for her to examine the rundown, once grand palace before her mind's eye began to enter the tallest tower of the castle through a window.

She turned to look at the strange throne that was positioned at the edge of a small pit. The room was empty, except for something in the chair. It was small, and covered in the filthiest rag she had ever seen.

This was what she was meant to see, this was the reason the crystal was sent to her.

She almost choked when what was in the chair moved. She couldn't breathe. Her chest felt tight and her eyes were immediately blurred by hot, confused tears. There he was, his blond hair falling across his forehead, his eyes closed in sleep, blissfully unaware of his surroundings. Her scream echoed against nothing as she was suddenly pulled backwards out of the vision and collapsed on her bedroom floor.

She had no choice.

She had to run the Labyrinth.

They had taken Robert.

* * *

**Author's note:**

- This story is most likely 13 chapters long, but might be 14. Haven't figured that out yet.

- This is unbeta'd and I don't think I'll be seeking one out, but if you wish to point out any mistakes, I'll be sure to fix them.

- ModernHaired!Jareth, I know. I just couldn't do it, that hair was ridiculous. Besides, I once read a headcanon that Jareth changed his appearance to fit the times and the runner's ideals, and I really liked that. If you need a reference, just look at production pictures of Bowie without the wig. It's basically that.

- If you have never seen Into The Woods, I strongly recommend it. There's a proshot version on DVD and I think it might still be on Netflix. It's an amazing musical with so many different themes and metaphors. I saw it when I was young, and I'm sure it's one of the things that stoked my love of storytelling.


	4. Chapter Four

The children waited for her cry of joy, but it did not come. She saw them, but she did not believe they were there. You see, she saw them in their beds so often in her dreams that she thought this was just the dream hanging around her still.

- Peter Pan by JM Barrie

* * *

**Chapter 4: Nearly Half Past Two**

* * *

"Robert!" Sarah yelled as she leapt out of bed. She stood panting in the middle of her dark, quiet bedroom. She glanced at the clock and groaned. It was nearly half past two in the morning.

A muffled groan alerted her the fact that her husband had been roused by her panicked shouts.

"Honey? Somethin' wrong?" He questioned blearily. Lance sat up to look at his wife's worried face in the dim moonlight.

"I just have a bad feeling about the kids. I'm going to go check on them, okay?"

Lance sighed, "I'll come with you."

"No, you don't have to."

"Sarah, I might as well. I get worried when you do." _Because you're usually right_, was left unspoken, but known by both.

Sarah smiled at him.

"Okay," she held her hand out for the love of her life to take with his larger, calloused one. "I remember when you had to check on Celeste every hour when we first had her." She smiled in fondness at the memory.

"Well, I had to make sure she didn't fly out the window," he said dryly.

Sarah's smile faded as they walked down the hallway to their son's room. She felt a sense of unease at the silence behind the approaching door. There was no reason for the feeling, silence meant her son was peaceful and asleep.

The doorknob creaked softly in Sarah's hand and she pushed the door open to reveal a sweetly sleeping Robert. The curtains in his room fluttered delicately in the spring breeze coming from his open window. Lance shivered and walked across the room to close them. He was almost halfway there when his foot hit a wooden fire truck on the floor.

"Shi-!" he exclaimed, but before he could finish, Sarah shushed him with a chiding look. She sat down on their son's bed and stroked his soft platinum blond curls. She loved his hair. Sarah knew it would darken eventually, as his sister's had as well. But she would enjoy the little special things about him now and every day for the rest of his life.

Lance had finished closing the curtains and walked back across the room to his wife, never taking his eyes off the floor, now wary of emergency response vehicles and building blocks. They whispered their goodnight to Robert, knowing he was safe in bed, before making their way to Celeste's attic room. They didn't notice the goblins in the closet, their hands on the other's mouth to keep each other from giggling.

They were confused when they saw a light underneath the door. Had she fallen asleep without turning the light off? That wasn't like her.

Sarah was the one to knock on the door, earning a gargled cry of surprise from inside.

"Celeste, do you know what time it is?"

"What? Oh, sorry I-I got distracted."

"By what, exactly?" Lance interjected.

They heard shuffling footsteps that got gradually louder until the door opened and they looked down to see Celeste, her shoulders slumped and her eyes puffy.

"Are you all right?" Sarah looked her daughter in the eye, her heart filled with concern.

"Um, yeah. I was just, uh, working on cleaning my room. I'm so tired, I started crying. I didn't notice the time until just now." She looked at her parents.

"We were just checking things." Sarah was caught between frustration at her daughter's obvious fib and concern for her well being. Was a boy the reason for her tears? She could never tell with Celeste.

"Okay. I'll go to bed now, sorry about the light."

"Hey, it's your sleep deprivation problem, not ours." Lance pointed out, trying to ignore what he assumed was teenage drama and lighten the mood before they all went back to their own beds.

Celeste smiled despite her bloodshot eyes. "You two are up too."

Sarah sighed. "'Night, sweetie."

"G'night, Mom, Dad." She began to shut the door. "Wait. Did you need anything? Did I do something?"

"No. Is there anything you need to tell us?" Lance asked, catching on to her nerves.

Celeste opened her mouth, yet no words came out.

She tried again.

"I'm just really tired." Her eyes started to tear. "I'm gonna go to bed, 'kay?"

"Goodnight, again." Sarah sighed.

Lance and Sarah turned away from their exhausted daughter and began to walk down the narrow stairs towards a most welcome return to sleep. Sarah jumped slightly as Celeste turned off her bedroom lights, plunging the staircase into complete darkness.

"Oops. Sorry." Celeste turned her lights back on to allow her parents to find their way back down the stairs, down the dim lit hallway, and finally closed the wide, French doors behind them.

* * *

"Sarah?" Lance whispered after they had climbed into bed and gotten comfortable.

"Yes?"

"What did you dream about?"

"What?"

"You had a nightmare. That's what woke you up."

"Oh."

"Are you all right?"

"I'm fine. Just go to sleep, my love."

Sarah never answered his question.

* * *

**Author's note:**

- This one is really short, and in the context provided by future chapters, might be confusing. Because it is short, you get it between other scheduled postings.

- I said in the story summary that Sarah plays a role to make it clear she actually exists as a character in this story and not just a means to connect her relative to the Underground. (And don't get me wrong, that can work sometimes.) God above, I love Sarah and loathe when she gets snubbed by fans. She's not hugely present in Book One. She's even more important in the story I'm currently redrafting, Book Two. And she basically gets equal screen time in Book Three, which is in its infancy.

- I've noticed I'm having trouble staying in the proper tense and am hugely embarrassed if anything managed to slip through.


	5. Chapter Five

Over the Mountains  
Of the Moon  
Down the Valley of the Shadow  
Ride, boldly ride!

- El Dorado by Edgar Allen Poe

* * *

**Chapter 5: Come On, Feet!**

* * *

Celeste couldn't believe it. She really could not believe that the Goblin King had stooped so low as to kidnap her brother without so much as a word from her. Weren't there rules that had to be followed?

"It's all right. Calm down. Breathe." She tried in vain to think rationally about the situation, but her breath kept catching, her pulse refused to slow down.

Her eyes blurred with tears as she paced back and forth in her room, unwilling to believe the circumstances she had got herself in.

_No. The Goblin King **put** me in._ How was she going to explain this to her parents? Why had the effing goblin been in her room in the first place? _Left behind by the others, **really**? Stupid, trusting, little girl!_

Her wet, stinging eyes prevented her from seeing anything. It wasn't until something tugged at her hair - hard - that she pulled her face away from her trembling, now empty, hands. The crystal had disappeared, she did not care where it had gone or why.

She swung blindly at whatever was pulling on her chestnut locks. A cry of indignation escaped it when Celeste succeeded in swatting it to the ground. Celeste finally rubbed her eyes clear of enough tears to see clearly once again. She couldn't help the still angry glare she aimed at the creature before her face relaxed into fascination.

It looked to be a tiny, young woman with gossamer wings and a childish, gangling frame.

_A fairy,_ Celeste realized. _Or a pixie. Is there a difference?_

The tiny winged girl stood up and began chattering angrily at Celeste while she brushed the dust off her small white dress.

_Wait a moment. Dust._

Celeste's head snapped up; her eyes widened at the sight sprawled out before her.

Past the windswept hill she stood upon, past a series of ponds and obelisks, was a stone titan bathed in moonlight. She felt something within her throat swell and plummet at the sight of the structure.

It was the Labyrinth. It had to be. She could have flown, the relief she felt at even being given a chance to win her brother back was almost elating. Instead of screaming or laughing as she suddenly felt the urge to, Celeste took a second look at her challenge and settled for a frustrated hiccup and a strange, whimpering giggle. It was so far!

She felt another faint tugging, but at her wrist. Another fairy was pulling at her watch. Instead of the usual twelve hours, the watch had been changed to feature a thirteenth hour.

The girl in the book had presumably been given a thirteen hour countdown, though Celeste doubted she had been given a watch. She paused as she noticed the time, a small shriek of panic and anger bursting forth from her.

The hands of the clock, ticking in a steady backwards circle, said that she had already used up half an hour.

"But I didn't do that! You took him and then didn't let me in!" She knew yelling at nothing wouldn't change anything, but she had a feeling she would be heard.

She growled at her horrible luck and set off racing down the hill as fast as her feet could carry her.

_Great,_ she thought. _I have to try and defeat the whole thing barefoot and with no bra on. That's just perfect._

* * *

Jareth sighed, bored with the image in the floating crystal in front of him. The girl did cry a lot, didn't she? They all whined and moaned near the start, but his Labyrinth was quite the journey. It was fascinating to watch their own shortcomings bring about failure.

Runners were few and far between in the golden age of mortal technology and cynicism, but it was one of the rare duties he held he could ever say he might enjoy. Or at least cared enough about to invest effort in.

_After all,_ he thought to himself while glancing at the one door in the castle that always remained shut. _I cannot lose now._

He took another look at the girl. She was coming to her first challenge. If anything, he was more likely to keep a close eye on the younger humans who felt obliged to fight for those wished away. The obstacles chosen for them were usually much more interesting than the rather boring run, fight, endure type challenges the adults were forced into. If he never had to watch an adult mortal outrun a minotaur, it would be too soon. Besides, while the poor chap was willing to perform his duty to his king, running about a darkened maze was not how he ever planned to spend his weekends.

The girl began to walk in the correct direction.

_This should be interesting..._

* * *

The ponds had not been cared for in years. Algae and twigs covered the surface of the waters so completely, she could not see her reflection. A statue of a dwarf seemed to watch her as she looked around for a sign to help guide her once she reached the outer wall and was forced to change course.

"Come on. Door... door..." She mumbled under her breath as she traveled alongside the crumbling stones. She worried that she might have been headed in the wrong direction, but decided to press onward, hoping that she would come across an entrance eventually. She walked for nearly five more minutes, stumbling as she went along. The moon was high and full, but her vision was still slightly impaired as the wind stirred the bone-dry dust into the air, hiding small stones and roots that occasionally stubbed on her toes.

Celeste reasoned a nighttime challenge was still better than daytime. She could only imagine how oven-like the giant stone structure could become on summer days. If it was even summer in the alien world she had landed in.

A warm breeze swept around her feet.

_Definitely summer..._

She continued her wondering as she continued to wander along the edge, hoping to find a door.

A possible entrance made itself available as she neared the distant sight. A small alcove sat in the wall of the Labyrinth with a strange little door inside it. The door was only a couple of feet tall, but even wider than a door of average height.

Out from underneath the little door was a shimmering gold pathway that moved away from the door only to turn and rejoin the wall a few feet along in one smooth, symmetrical arc. With its tapered beginnings and pregnant center, the pathway resembled a large golden crescent moon.

Celeste got down on her knees and examined the door and strange pathway. As she got closer, she discovered that the path was paved with a glowing golden dust that stained her fingertips and clothes. The more she tried to brush the strange dust off, the more it seemed to multiply and stick to her skin without any of it falling to the ground.

She decided the best way forward would be to simply try the door first. She reached out one hand, balancing on the other one. When her hand grabbed the door's knob, she heard an angry chattering sound coming from the other side. All balance was lost in surprise and she fell to the side - into the glowing substance - as the little door opened and a small round creature flung it aside.

"What now?!" The infuriated thing was wearing did not resemble any of the goblins Celeste had seen so far. It had smooth black hair all over its body, the shine of which highlighted how dingy its green apron was. Its nose was almost catlike, and its eyes were black as night. "Oh. You're not- never mind! What do you want?"

Celeste was shocked, she thought this door would be an entrance into the Labyrinth, not the apparent abode of a goblin.

"I'm sorry to disturb you. Do you know how I might get into the Labyrinth?"

"Beats me! I suggest you give up now. No one ever defeats the King." The goblin said the latter sentence with such a layer of sarcasm and derision that Celeste almost smiled.

"You don't like the Goblin King much, huh?" She hoped that a little bit of conversation would loosen the goblin's lips and encourage him to help her. Her seemingly innocent question did not have its intended effect and angered the goblin further.

"GOBLIN KING! GOBLIN KINGDOM! HA! Let me tell you, Missy, there are other creatures in this blasted kingdom! There are trolls and orcs and pixies and us brownies too! Yet the First Kingdom calls us the Goblin Kingdom! It's damn racist!"

Celeste didn't quite know how to respond to such a rant. The brownie seemed quite perturbed about the First Kingdom's choices, whatever that was. She looked at the brownie, planning to apologize profusely for causing it such distress, when she noticed it wasn't even looking at her anymore.

"It's never done that before." The brownie was staring at the strange crescent on the ground behind her.

"Done what?"

"It's never lit up like that before. Want my advice, this is your best bet to get in, if you can figure it out. Probably a riddle!" The brownie rolled his eyes.

"This isn't yours?" She was getting rather confused, and she hadn't even gotten in.

"It was there when we moved in." The brownie shrugged. "Like I said, never did that before, didn't seem too dangerous." With everything said that he seemed to think needed to be said, he slammed the little wood door unceremoniously in her face. Celeste could here him mumbling about "silly humans" as he stomped away.

She sighed and stood up to examine the crescent on the ground. It only took her a moment to realize that even though she she had knelt and fallen on the strange dust, the only way in which the moon had been disturbed was the dust that had stuck to her hands and clothes. Curiosity compelled her to get back on her knees and incautiously stick her hand in the strange dust and throw it up and to the left of its apparent border.

The dust stopped at the edge of the moon shape and trickled to the ground as if Celeste had thrown it against a smooth wall. She tried again. The very same thing happened. She began to crawl along the edge, throwing dust in the direction of the Labyrinth wall as she went. The same thing happened until she got to the center of the moon; the widest, most prominent section. The dust almost seemed to leap out of the crescent and land on the stone ground.

But it did not land in the way a handful of dust should have. It landed in a straight, narrow line perpendicular to the crescent moon.

Celeste wasted no time in digging her hands into the dust, pulling it in the one direction it seemed to allow itself to go. She dragged her fingers along the line, forcing the dust further and further in towards the the wall. Just when Celeste was worried she might bump her head on the wall, the narrow line of dust also formed itself into a flared tail at the end and refused to go any further. Celeste huffed. She had been so close to something, and couldn't go on in that direction.

_Well,_ she determined, _maybe the dust goes in the other direction as well._

So she started anew. She worked from the outside corner of the moon towards the center, not wanting to miss anything that could force the dust into a recognizable shape. Once she got to the outside section of the moon that was directly opposite the line on the inside, the dust did exactly the same thing. She almost rolled her eyes, expecting a dead end and preparing to stand up and continue walking when she saw that the dust had not spread as far in that direction. It had begun to flare mere inches away from the edge of the moon. She pushed a little more in that direction and marveled as the dust came to a sharp, clear point. Where the other line had formed a widened, softer flare, this side looked sharp enough to wound, had it been made of something more solid.

Celeste stood up to try to figure out what sort of shape it was and how it could help her save her brother. Once she took a few steps back, the intended shape became clear.

It was an arrow with the moon as its bow. She moved to stand on top of the moon again and turned in the direction the arrow was pointing. In the distance was another small pond like all those she had passed by before coming to the brownie's door.

In front of the pond was a small gray statuette, yet she could not tell what it was from her position. She walked closer to it and found, upon closer inspection, a small figure of a creature with the body of a horse and the torso of a man.

_A centaur._

The centaur in question was crouched in a bed of nettles, staring with empty grey eyes down into the round pond. In his hands was a small golden bow that glowed in a similar fashion as the bow Celeste had just created. He was aiming for the bottom of the pond as if he had caught sight of his prey and was in the perfect position to catch it. Celeste looked into the pond to see if there was anything inside it.

The pond was dry. She reached out to caress the shining bow in the centaur's hands. As soon as her fingers touched the arrow, the centaur statue jumped into action. She didn't pull back in time and the animate statue managed to stab the flesh of her hand with the arrow head.

"Ow!" Celeste jumped back as tears stung her eyes once again. "What the hell was that for?"

The centaur straightened his back and stared empty-eyed at her. He grasped his bow and used it to gesture stoically towards the empty pond.

_You know what to do_, the same voice from her bedroom whispered in her ear. She glanced at the blood oozing from the skin of her palm. The statue nodded solemnly.

"My blood?"

The centaur nodded again, his proud aura was rather admirable, considering his size. He gestured to the pond, this time more fervent than before. Was he truly trying to help her? She walked forward again, cautious, but trusting enough to turn away from the stone centaur long enough to let her blood drip into the pond.

When the blood left her hand and reached its destination at the bottom of the dusty pit, Celeste heard a low, grating sound. The earth began to move and she had to fight to keep her balance.

Once all was still again, she glanced back in the depths of the empty pond. She saw the stones had rearranged themselves. Instead of an empty water feature, the stones on one side had shifted to create a kind a slope, giving the former pond all the appearance of a slide.

_A terrifying, pitch dark, probably goes to Hell or worse kind of slide, but it's something._

Celeste took one more look at the centaur. He had returned to his previous position, except now he didn't invoke the idea of a hunter within sight of its prey. He seemed to be a kind of guide, using his arrows of light to fulfill his duty and give guidance to any traveler who wished for his help.

"Thank you," Celeste said, truly grateful for a chance at another leg in her journey. She took a quick, scrutinizing look at the castle. She was to head down and didn't know when she would get another chance to see the castle or use it as a guide through the twisting paths that were sure to come. She sat at the edge of the pond and swung he feet inside the strange stone tube.

"Oh crap, this is not going to be fun." And with that, she leaned back and shifted her weight down, plunging into the inky blackness below.

_Robert, I'm coming._

* * *

**Author's note:**

- There's something that aspiring writers are usually taught when it comes to editing. 'If it doesn't work, cut it.' For better or worse, I think I ignored that advice this chapter. The moon dust scene still doesn't feel right, but I'm also a perfectionist. If I were to withhold everything until I thought it was perfect, I don't know if I'd ever publish anything, professionally or otherwise!

- I've stayed on schedule with postings so far, and think I'll be able to stay on track until this is uploaded.

- If anyone has noticed via my tumblr (link on profile) or ao3 account, these 13ish chapters are posted elsewhere clearly labeled Book One. That's because it is technically part of a larger story that will be split into a series on ao3. But ff net has rules against that, so everything about Celeste will be under this story simply as 'Women Who Run.'

- Any and all mistakes are mine, etc. Feel free to correct, mistakes will be fixed. Feedback appreciated.


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